Dick! you’ll never play the fiddle any more!” He used to amuse us at Oporto by playing the fiddle of an evening; I came back to my brother corporal, and told him that Richard Ovenden, of the light company, was the first man I discovered. We went on together, and I observed a sergeant a short distance from the road, leaning up against a wall, with his fusee on his arm; I found he was quite dead and stiff, and the wall supporting him; I took hold of him and put him under the wall. We advanced a little further, and I saw two tailors belonging to the battalion company, one by the name of Pearce, and the other name was Robinson--they had died together, hand in hand; we went on a little further, and I discovered a great number of men of all regiments lying round big waterholes, all poisoned--as many as two or three hundred. It was a very shocking and sickening sight to see so many brave men sent to their long account in such a dreadful manner. Our troops at the time had captured the town, and we got into it more dead than alive. The first gentleman I saw was Captain Shaw, captain of my company (light company); he came up to me and shook hands with me, he was very glad to see me; he heard I was dead under the hill, and I said, “I heard you were dead, too, captain.” There were orders issued for the men not to take too much wine or provisions, as, from being without food some time, it was feared it might have a bad effect. The cavalry had orders to keep their horses closely fastened, so that they might be ready at any moment, as we were laying during the night under expectation of the enemy reinforcing troops from Lisbon. They came up early on the following morning with a reinforcement; our spies came galloping into town, and acquainted the general that commanded the whole of the army (Soldano, a gentleman of Oporto), that they were about twenty-seven thousand strong, and we at the same time were from seven thousand to eight thousand. We were ordered to retire back to Oporto, and as fast as possible we occupied a hill in front, and the enemy in the rear, coming up about a league distance, where we arrived on the second evening. They brought all their reinforcements up to the town of Oporto, and were determined to take the town, if possible; and as they came on the hard roads and across the fields, the orders were that the officer of the outlying duty was to touch the train in order to blow up the road, and the enemy with it. It was reported that there were as many as three thousand blown up by the trains. The guns from the batteries commenced full play on the enemy’s columns, supposed to be about three hours’ engagement. When it came to nightfall the enemy had lost about seven thousand troops; they beat the retreat during the night, so that we heard no more of them. We marched back to the convent, the British battalion at Oporto, and lay there till further orders.